cinque terre, italy
For our easter holiday (aka semana santa), I went to cinque terre, Italy with my friend Christy (from work). I also went to mallorca with her as well, though we didn’t travel together at all during my first two years living here in Barcelona. We had a good time, and no we were effected at all by the earthquake that happened in Italy during the time that we were there.
We flew into Milan because that was where we could find the cheapest flight to, we also couldn’t have flown into pisa. I kinda wished we did now because Milan wasn’t very attractive really. Though we didn’t see that much of Milan, the parts that we did see were nothing really to talk about.
We made our way to the main train station there to buy our train ticket to the cinque terre area. The train ride took around 3 hours. There are five coastal towns that make up this area. We decided to stay in a different on for each of our 3 nights traveling around there. By train, it only takes like 3-4 minutes to get from one town to the next. The cool thing though is that you can choose to hike from one town to the next, we only ended up doing that one time, the rest of the traveling we did by train. We realized that we are not really hiking people, nor do we have the right clothes and the equipment to hike correctly with comfort.
The first town was one of our favorites. It had the most character and the best tasting food. It was a little dreary though when we were there. The placed we stayed at wasn’t the best either. The woman though who worked there was very funny. We also met 3 american college boys during breakfast that were good for a laugh.
Speaking of Americans, they were everywhere in cinque terre!!! We honestly thought there was no crisis anymore because some of the Americans were traveling with 2 or 3 children! It was quite maddening. I really think that cinque terre businesses wouldn’t be able to survive without our presence there.
The next morning we took the train to the next town and checked into our new bed and breakfast. This time we got a very nice view of the sea. This town looked very beautiful as well. It was up high on the mountain, not like the first one.
After checking in we walked around the town. We saw some buys playing soccer. We didn’t realize that this area of Italy is known for lemons. So we sat down and ate a granito (ice slushy) with fresh lemon juice! Yum!
This amazing cat came up to us after we ate our granitos.
Then Christy and I took some pictures of us being grumpy.
Then we left the city to go to one of the cities that we missed, we decided to each lunch there.
Our meal wasn’t very good actually. This area of Italy must not be known for really good food. We had some amazing meals, but 50% of the time the food was just ok.
I saw these people all eating ice cream, they just looked so gross licking their cones!
After lunch we took a short hike up the mountain to get a nice view of the city. It was nice and sunny. This city has to be one of the more colorful ones.
Then we started our first and only hike of the trip; taking us back to the city that we were staying in. We saw some great views. The sea was looking really beautiful. Little did we know that there was a big storm coming.
We got all the way to the top of the mountain, and then the dark clouds came over us. Luckily we had an umbrella because it started pouring. The lightning was really close to us, and the thunder felt like it was right on top of us! It was really exhilarating and quite scary!
After the storm, the walk down the mountain was very green!
Our place had a very nice view. The lighting was also nice, so we took some pictures of each being serious.
The last day we took the train to the last city of cinque terre. This city was nice. Our b and b was nice as well (though we had to walk up a steep hill to get there). We did some more exploring around the area.
We also ate lunch there. The food was pretty good. After lunch, we walked to get to the dock area. I took some great pictures of the local Italian men and women, as well as the city itself.
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